Golden Globes Film Awards 2019 – Winners!

The Golden Globe Awards have always been full of contrition. From its own genre split (Drama and Comedy,) to its audacious nominations, the award ceremony – seen as a major step towards an Academy Award – has been provocative at best. Last night was no different, and whilst there were deserving winners, there has been a dark cloud cast over the industry.

The awards were hilariously hosted by Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh (who would later go on to win Best Actress in a TV Series for Killing Eve.) Though there upsets, that we’re going to talk about, we should celebrate the good news first.

First of all Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse picked up BEST ANIMATION, knocking Disney off of their perch and rightfully so!

Roma scooped up Best Foreign Film with Alfonso Cuaron going on to win Best Director our new reigning Queen, Olivia Colman scooped up Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for her role in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite. Best Actor in the same category went to Christian Bale for Vice.

Best Actress in a Drama went the immutable Glenn Close for her role in The Wife. Mahershala Ali scooped up Best Supporting Actor in any film for his turn in Green Book whilst Best Supporting Actress in the same category went to Regina King. Rami Malek was superb as Freddie Mercury and scooped up his award for Best Actor in a Drama for Bohemian Rhapsody.

However, Bohemian Rhapsody, an altogether lacklustre film, scooped up Best Drama. It is disappointing for many reasons, especially considering that it’s director Bryan Singer has been accused multiple times of sexual assault across a long period. In a year where the industry is supposed to be furthering the charge against abusers, it seems weird to award this, again, rather average made movie against other winners such as If Beale Street Could Talk or BlacKkKlansman.

There’s also Green Book wins for Best Comedy/Musical and Best Screenplay. Now, we enjoyed Green Book a lot but it has earned its fair share of controversies including Don Shirley’s family refuting a lot of the “true story” elements of the film, despite being depicted in the film formidably by Mahershala Ali. There has also been outrage of the white-washing of black experiences and heavy usage of the white saviour trope too. It all feels backwards.